


Inconceivable

by ConnecticutJunkie



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Darkish Clara, F/M, I bet Missy will show up, Postpartum Depression, The TARDIS wants what it wants, but I still like her, but not entirely, but not the normal kind, dad skills, did someone say hybrid?, yeah yeah its a baby fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-04-28 05:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5078800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConnecticutJunkie/pseuds/ConnecticutJunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a man who prided himself on solving any puzzle the Universe could throw at him, the Doctor was flummoxed by this one: How could Clara, who so lovingly took care of other people's children, abandon her own?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Newborn

**Author's Note:**

> Liberties will be taken pretty much everywhere. About reproduction, about science, and about canon bc I have an awful memory. This is just a quick amuse bouche of a chapter, to encourage me to actually finish. More details will emerge.
> 
>  
> 
> ***

They name him Oswald Gallifrey Smith, because they honestly could not agree on anything else, and Clara smiles and coos, 'Welcome to the universe, Ozzie,' when he first emerges (alright, after he first emerges and is cleaned off and she takes a few deep breaths because the baby's head is humongous and Clara must also be bigger on the inside). But the Doctor can't see him as an Ozzie, not yet, and rather likes the odd sound his initials make, and thus he becomes known as Ogs. Clara, of course, is not fond of (i.e. vociferously hates) it. 

The first week is a nappy commercial heaven, peaceful sleeping and button nose kisses and five tiny perfect fingers wrapping around one large adult digit. He's felt that before, everyone who's ever reproduced has felt that before, and yet the marvel never wears off. He watches the normal, seen it a million times Earth sunrise from the small cottage they are currently occupying with the Wee Baby Ogs (his current favourite nickname) in his arms and is effervescent with the anticipation of explaining how the sun works to him. Not now of course. Maybe when he is six months old. 

Clara alternates between smiles so wide she really would need three mirrors to see them, exasperation at how much a tiny thing can defecate, and quick bouts of weeping as her hormones careen drunkenly around her bloodstream. Clara never has to wake up in the night if she doesn't want to, as he doesn't need the sleep and it's lovely to have Ogs nap in his arms, lulled by the double beats. (Ogs has one heart- curiosity still eats at him. How? Why? But seriously HOW? He blames the TARDIS, mostly. River was her fault also. Hence the reason behind 'no hanky panky' when exposed to the vortex. But that rule was very much forgotten a multitude of times when Clara would look at him a certain way...)

But after a month, he can see the signs. She's perfected all there is to perfect about feeding, and nappy changing,  and cleaning the baby in the little tub without drowning him. She knows that he's always monitoring Ogs while she sleeps, and has no irrational yet completely justified need to wake up in the middle of the night to make sure Ogs is still breathing. In the night she opens the windows and has him enter her from behind while she lets the starlight tickle her skin. For two thousand years he has suffered from a type of time traveler's ADHD, finding it difficult to sit still in one time and place, and he knows enough to see she has the same affliction. He knows what it is, but finds that it no longer bothers him; Ogs was his cure...but his alone. 

She breastfeeds because it's the most natural thing, but also because he hasn't quite even figured out how Ogs came to be, so why chance human made formula when it might be missing something crucial. A protein, an enzyme, unique to the combination (he won't even say the H word) of Gallifreyanesque Human that is their son. That's what he tells her, of course, with his I'm the Doctor, I know what I'm talking about voice. 

But the Doctor lies. 

His feeble attempt to keep her grounded lasts all of another month, and she hoists the bag containing the pump over her shoulder and flashes him a grin as she hops into the TARDIS. On her first return she hands him a cooler filled with tiny eight ounce bags of frozen milk, and he knows she was gone about three days. But the cooler gets more and more full with each trip, and when Ogs is four months old in earthtime, she leaves him a freezer chest with at least a half year's worth of milk, and tells him she is dry. It's the last time he's able to know with enough precision how long she leaves for. When Ogs blows out (with some sonic help) his first candle, he watches her cut the cake with hands that he thinks are between two and three years older than the ones that cradled their newborn son. 

He isn't certain, because he doesn't want to know. 


	2. Toddler

Chapter Two- Toddler

He knows Clara. He knows she gets in the TARDIS and takes a selfie, documenting hair and outfit. Without hacking into the TARDIS he sees her with scissors in hand, trimming off an inch here, a ponytail there, so that when she steps out of the doors again, it's the same old Clara. _My Clara,_ he thinks, except this time it is with irony and not awe. 

'Somebody has to keep the Universe safe!' she yells at him, when he tells her in a rather pointed manner that she missed Ogs' first step. 'You were the one who said it was too dangerous to raise a baby in all of time and space.'

'Clara...' is all he manages, because she is both right and wrong. Yes, he didn't think it was best to run from Daleks while pushing a pram, but there was a difference between duty and galavanting. He tells her so, in the most gentle way he can, which of course goes completely tits up. 

'I come back into your timeline within reasonable parameters,' she says so sweetly she almost chokes on it, because Ogs is starting to pick up on the tension. 'It's no different than a working mum going to the office, yeah?' She picks the toddler up and gives him a kiss on the forehead, which results in a giggle and a 'mummy' and two little hands squeezing her wide cheeks. 'See, he doesn't even know.'

'But I do,' is his only reply, and their spat ends when she walks away without another word, hiding her tears by nuzzling her face into Ogs'. In the predawn light the next morning, she gently pries Ogs off his chest and puts him in the rarely used crib, and apologises as best she can with kisses and sighs and breathy _I miss you_ s. 

Later, through the thin fog of his light sleep, he hears the shower, and her heels on the wooden floor, and then the TARDIS. When he makes breakfast for Ogs, there is a note taped to the egg carton. 

_Someone has to be the Doctor_.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 and 3 were already written but I was kind of waiting for series 9 to end so I could make sure my loose little plot didn't have any similarities, and so I could mull over canon. As it turns out, I don't actually care about it too much! 
> 
> Thanks for reading. I'm not a kid fic person but I had one little idea and wanted to run with it.


End file.
